ISLAMABAD: The Parliamentary Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Secretariat and the Leadership for Environment and Development (LEAD) Pakistan, a national think tank, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for capacity building of members of parliament and its staff, at the Parliament House on Thursday.
National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq and LEAD Pakistan Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ali Tauqeer Sheikh signed the agreement.
State Minister for Information, Broadcasting and National Heritage Marriyum Aurangzeb and the Parliamentary SDGs Secretariat chairperson were also present during the MoU signing ceremony.
Talking to the media after the ceremony, Ayaz Sadiq said that the objective behind the agreement was to overcome the problems in implementation of SDGs in the country. He said MPAs would also be trained at a later stage. He said that Pakistan’s parliament enjoyed the honour of being the first legislature to have a full-fledged SDGs Secretariat.
In her remarks, Marriyum Aurangzeb said that members of parliament and its staff would be imparted focused training on SDGs to improve the delivery at the grassroots level.
She said that the LEAD Pakistan would provide technical assistance and research-based data to parliamentarians for policymaking and even helping them in legislating on various subjects if required, thus enhancing their oversight capabilities in connection with the implementation of the SDGs.
The minister said that after the 18th amendment the implementation of SDGs had become a responsibility of the provinces, and the MoU could also be integrated with the SDGs task forces in the provinces, which had been formed to ensure countrywide implementation of the SDGs. She said that the Parliamentary SDGs Secretariat could also work with provinces within the framework of the MoU.
Marriyum Aurangzeb said that for the first time legislators had been taken on board in the process of sustainable development goals, while constituency-based focused funding was being done to meet the SDGs targets.
Under the MoU, she said that parliamentarians would be empowered with knowledge, data and learning of soft skills through different capacity building programmes.
Members and chairs of selected standing committees would be assisted for research and inclusion of the priority areas of SDGs in the parliamentary agenda, she said.
Published in Daily Times, September 15th 2017.
